Talk to your relatives before it’s too late!

Probably all of us miss our relatives who have passed away. Many of us wish they were still here for many reasons. They might keep the “Italian culture” more the old way, with Sunday dinners and family being closer than they are today. Many of us just miss the people and would like to speak to them one more time, to let them know what happened since they left.

And genealogists want to ask them a BUNCH of questions!

I was reminded of this the last time I saw the movie “5000 Miles From Home.” If you do not own a copy, you should. This film describes the effect of World War II on the young Italian Americans in Chicago who served their country, were changed from boys to men, and for some, who never came home.

The movie includes interview segments from about two dozen Chicago Italian-American World War II veterans, of whom as of mid 2025, only Carl Liture remains living at age 99!

Thanks to the DVD, the recollections and stories of all these people are preserved forever.

There are many other DVD documentaries about Italian Americans in other cities, and not connected necessarily with World War II. Many of the people interviewed in those movies are gone as well.

So the point I am laboring to make, is that we need to record the stories of our relatives for posterity while they’re still among us.

I know I spent a lot of time hanging out with the older generation relatives, and even though I didn’t have a clipboard with notes or questions on it, I was interviewing them, in a way.

Now that many of them have gone, I am the carrier of their stories, and I should record what I know for myself.

I would think we have all seen a lot of great professional interviewers on television. Talk show hosts like Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Larry King, Dick Cavett, Charlie Rose. Also in-depth interviewers like Barbara Walters, James Lipton, Mike Wallace, Dan Rather, and many podcast hosts. I have tried to see what their techniques are, so I can get the benefit of the stories from my relatives.

A professional interviewer has to establish a rapport with their subject. If we interview family, we have that part covered. We can’t be too forward, saying something awful like “I need to talk to you — you’re over 90 and won’t be around long.” That’s when you would hear one of those wonderful Italian curse words!

I don’t claim to be an expert but there are a few things I would try to do.

It would seem obvious to me that the subject should be comfortable, and the environment should be free of distractions. It would be hard for someone to think back seven decades while grandchildren are running around chasing the family dog! Don’t start the interview after the third Sambuca either. It may help then be more talkative, but it will cost you accurate recollection.

A good interview should be conducted when the subject is at their most alert. Don’t do the interview right before or after a nap. You want them thinking clearly. If they work best after a double-espresso at 7:30am, then you should be ready to start at 8!

If the subject has had a very difficult time, such as a war injury, or the loss of a spouse or child, I would not get too much into that bad topic unless the subject has talked about it many times. I have seen Dan Rather interview a lot of rock stars on his recent show “The Big Interview” and he seems to have a method. “Now I know you have written about this in your autobiography, and I don’t want to dwell on it, but when your drummer died from the overdose, what did you go through?”

Other interviewers don’t do their homework. A recent documentary on Liza Minelli, now almost 80, opens with footage of Liza, Lorna and Joe at their mother Judy Garland’s funeral in 1969, and Liza (being interviewed in the present day) said something like “I’m sick of being Judy’s {expletive deleted} kid!!” Sadly she didn’t want to talk about a number of other topics either that are a major part of her life story. This is not a criticism of Liza. It is an example of someone who is either tired of speaking to the press about personal mistakes, and who perhaps does not want to settle the discussions once and for all. Some famous folks would like to keep the aura of mystery. Johnny Carson springs to mind. There are many things we don’t know about famous people, and there are things we know too much about.

When we get back to our relatives, it is likely that A) they are not famous, and therefore are not sick of the press reporting falsehoods about their crazy life; and B) having never been interviewed, they might feel the pressure that this is the one and only chance to either make a lie stick forever, or to settle the debate about that first wife once and for all!

In the time you have spent with your subject over the years, you probably have an idea how your subject will react when you bring up their four failed marriages and the stepson nobody knows where he came from. Remember your audience. The family may want gossip sometimes, but 50 years from now, descendants not yet born will want to know what life was like, not the sordid mistakes.

I have also seen some interviewers who make what I feel is the biggest mistake of all. They don’t listen. They ask the subject “So after your mother died, you did what”. They answer “I had no one to keep me in Tulsa so I moved to New York City to try to get involved in the garment business.”

Then the interviewer asks “You married your wife in 1959?” A) nothing to do with the answer of the last question, and B) the second question is a yes-or-no. Very boring. First ask about the garment trade.

“Why New York? Why not Oklahoma City?”

“I had a buddy. He wasn’t my buddy for long. He partnered with me to open a shop, then took all the assets and left me with the liabilities!”

“So you left for where?”

“I heard he took off for Chicago so I moved here. Never did find him. Took me 20 years to pay the creditors but I’m proud to say I paid every red cent.”

“And your buddy?”

“I’m sure he’s gone but if he ever shows up at my house….”

“But Chicago wasn’t all bad, right?

“Yeah I met my beautiful wife of 62 years at a coffee shop.” etc

The questions and answers above combine to tell a story, mostly because the next question is essentially “and then what”. Your relative may not be a great story teller or writer. That’s where you come in. Get them to talk about things they want to discuss, and use one event to trigger the next memory. If you ask about Chicago and they say, “Well I met that old {leaving out nasty words here}, my first wife.” Then you should say “We don’t need to discuss her unless you want to.” During the course of an interview, you might accidentally hit a sore subject. Maybe Mike Wallace would have probed deeper, but he had TV ratings to consider. You just want to keep memories for future generations. You might get fewer memories if your subject becomes guarded because you keep digging about the first wife too long.

I want to make a fine point here, but you should do a few things when storing these memories.

1. Don’t just interview the 90 year olds. Some of their recall has probably gone due to age. But if you talk to cousins your own age, or even younger ones, you are capturing their life experience for the future.
2. You might want to play the raw interview video or audio to your subject to make sure there’s nothing in there they will get mad at you for.
3. Make sure the interviews are easily available to the family. Don’t leave one copy on your iphone and then drop the phone in the commode and lose it all. I lost my only copy of a recording of my thoughts on 9/11 recorded that evening. It’s gone and can never be reproduced.
4. Donate a copy to the Casa Italia Library and the IA Veterans Museum if appropriate. Send a copy to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, because people might look there. Library of Congress etc.

When you’re done with an interview, play it back to yourself a dozen times. If you’re horrified by how boring it is, or how bad your questions are, take some notes and try again. Watch some professionals on youtube to see how it’s done.

And fifty years from now, when people are playing your interviews to learn about Nonno, they’ll have you to thank!